Home Away From Home - 18. Chapter 18

Morning came early, or so it seems. “Wake up Puppy, we have to run this morning and you have to get ready for orientation.”

He laid there with the look of love in his eyes or was it lust. Sometimes it’s hard to decide which is which. “Come on babe, we don’t want to get fat and Doug will be here with our luggage soon.”

“Give me a kiss first.” I was on to his game, one kiss then two and it goes on and on.

“I’ll give you more than a kiss after we run.”

“I don’t have shoes or shorts.”

Didn’t work, I had packed those in with mine since I didn’t need all that space for my clothes. “Here are your shorts, socks and shoes. Let’s go. We’ll be back before long.”

It was 7:30 before he was ready to run. Timing was ok, his orientation started at 10 since he needn’t go to the orientation about dorm selection. We ran till 9, started off slow, but gradually picked up the speed. We met several other joggers on the route I had chosen. When we got back home and started our cool down exercise, I noticed a strange car parked in the visitor parking area. I saw Puppy looking over and then a smile on his face. “Who’s car is that?”

“Guess.”

“I don’t know anyone with a car like that.” Then I saw Tony heading in with a cup of coffee. “Your mom and dad are here. Let’s go.”

We raced to the elevator and headed north. When we got off and as we walked to our apartment, Puppy stopped me and gave me a kiss. “I love you” Then he raced toward the apartment door. The sneak he did that on purpose to give him a slight advantage in greeting his parents. I wasn’t angry, they were his parents.

As I walked into the apartment, Rita came to give me a hug. I put up my hand to stop her. “I’m sweaty and stink. As soon as I shower, I’ll give you a hug. kiss and massage but not now.”

I headed into our bedroom and into the shower. Puppy had already started the shower, he was just getting in. I joined him and between the two of us, we managed to get pretty clean and smelling good in 15 minutes. For us that’s a world’s record.

I pulled on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. Went to talk to the parents while Anthony dressed for orientation. Tony was finishing his coffee, I put the tea kettle on for tea and waited for my boy. “Have you had any breakfast?”

“Yes, we had breakfast just before we arrived here.”

“Do you mind if I prepare something for Anthony and me. We went running at 7 and I promised I’d prepare breakfast when I came back.”

“No, go ahead.”

“Rita would you like a cup of tea while you wait.”

“Yes, thanks.”

I prepared a small pot of tea and set it on the table along with a cup and spoon. “Do you need sugar or milk.”

“No thanks Carlo, this is fine.”

I took two slices of bread remove the center, added olive oil to a pan with a lid as the olive oil heated I added the bread and then cracked the eggs into the center of the bread. I added a few drops of water, placed the lid on the pan and waited. When Anthony was finished dressing, I poured his tea, and set his breakfast before him.

“What do you call this?”

“Fried bread and egg. Eat it, you’ll like it.”

He did and he did. I looked at Tony, “You sure you wouldn’t like one of these?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Have you moved into the guest bedroom yet?”

“No, our luggage is still in the car.”

“While you’re at the orientation, I can bring your luggage up. Doug should be here soon with the luggage you shipped. Tony, we’d like to turn the office into a library for studying. I think all we’ll need is a table and some comfortable, but not too comfortable chairs. Do you have problem with that?”

“I don’t see why you need to do that. Why can’t you use the kitchen table?”

“We thought the space would be better utilized as a study rather than an office, which we don’t need. The kitchen isn’t a good place to study, to many distractions, people stopping by, and that will happen. We’d have our work strewn over the table only to have to pick it up and then move it back when they leave.”

Moving into the area that was designated as an office, “Where did the book cases come from?”

“We moved them here from the bedroom.”

“Does that mean you’ll not be studying in the bedroom?”

I shook my head no. “We want to study here. Doctor Anthony may decide to do some doctoring in the bedroom, serious studying needs to be done here.”

“Does that mean you and my son have made a commitment?”

“Yes, we have for life. There will be no one else in my life, Anthony is it. I think he feels the same way.”

“What’s going to happen, you'll be graduating in 2 years and he’ll have 2 years to go.”

“We talked about that, I have decided to get a master’s degree while he finishes his undergraduate. Then I’ll follow him where ever he goes until he gets his doctor degree.”

“I like the master degree, it’ll set you up with the right credentials. The other, I don’t know. You have a five year commitment to me.”

“Yes, and a life time commitment to your son. Of course, if you had an office where he’s going to go to school or if there is a school where you have an office, both could be satisfied. But I’m not giving up Anthony. And if I have to sell pencils to be with him, I will.”

I didn’t realize that Rita and Anthony heard our discussion. When I went back into the kitchen for another cup of tea, Rita had tears in her eyes and Puppy had a big smile on his face. Looking at Rita, “Why the tears?”

“I think I got something in my eye.”

Looking at Puppy, “Why the big smile?”

“Cause I love you.”

Something wasn’t right and they weren’t going to tell me. Just then Doug knocked on the door, opened the door carrying two suitcases. “There are two more downstairs.”

I went down and brought them up. “Doug, Rita and Tony’s luggage is in their car, could you help me bring that up as well.”